<
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/st-louis-marsh-grocery-store-nonprofit/>
"At MARSH Grocery in St. Louis, fresh bunches of asparagus, zucchini, and at
least 30 other vegetables and fruits come straight from the food cooperative’s
urban farm lots — and shoppers pick their price. The store, which opened a year
ago to fill a gap in affordable, healthy food access in the Carondelet
neighborhood, sells produce and a full range of other groceries on a sliding
“pay-what-you-can” scale. Patrons can choose to pay up to 20 percent more or 20
percent less than what’s on the sticker.
Nonprofit grocers are notoriously challenging to make work but, MARSH founder
Beth Neff says, their approach mostly breaks even, with above-price payments
nearly matching dollars lost to discounts. “People who can afford it are very
interested in adding,” Neff says.
According to the USDA, in 2021, 13.5 million US households experienced food
insecurity, meaning there were times when there wasn’t enough money to feed
everyone in the family. MARSH’s formula could be a piece of the puzzle in
overhauling the food system to end hunger — a goal to which the Biden
administration recently committed $8 billion. Indeed, a Brookings Institution
report last year cited small grocers, along with farmers’ markets and community
gardens, as a critical resource of healthy food access in many communities.
In the mix with the grocery store and three neighborhood farm lots at MARSH
(which stands for Materializing and Activating Radical Social Habitus): a
consumer-supported agriculture (CSA) program that delivers produce and prepared
foods, a 24,000-item online catalog, a community event space, and a commercial
kitchen that creates prepared foods for the store and the CSA."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
